Made with Real Ingredients: Greenwashing for Kids Stinks

Greenwashing for kids is the worst.

Recently I was in a children’s store and saw at the checkout counter a display for kid-friendly lip balms boasting, “made with natural ingreidents.” Naturally, I took a look at the ingreidents, which started with oxybenzone and ended with a bunch of stuff I couldn’t pronounce.

Made with natural ingredients? So are cigarettes. So is cocaine. Name one thing on God’s green earth that does not contain some percentage of a natural ingredient – remember, WATER is a natural ingredient!

This kind of labeling has been proliferating products for the past few years, as companies try to upgrade their green marketing way faster than they actually upgrade their manufacturing.

I’ve said it a million times – people and products don’t have to be perfect – just be honest!

I was walking around at a festival the other day and someone was giving out sunscreen – which is great, it was a hot, sunny day! I’d rather people take the conventional sun protection than burn, but when I simply said no thank you to the vendor as I prefer to use natural sunscreen, he started insisting, “It is natural. It’s dermatologist approved. It’s the best on the market. Perfectly safe.” Fine, I said, as I read the long list of toxins and silently shoved it back in the basket. This guy wasn’t worth arguing with.

Again – just tell the truth! And if you are in the market for kid-friendly lip balm, this one is cute, girly, sweet, and proper organic.